Cole Shoot Page 5

  Mei struggled to get to her feet. The floor was slick with spilled paint and water. Marco rocked back and forth where he stood, his eyes still tightly shut.

  Parra kicked and shoved chairs, easels, and kids as she made her way to the door. As the door slammed behind her, the glass nearly shattered from the force. The hysteria of the class seemed to subside with the absence of Ms. Parra. Students came to the assistance of their classmates whose paint projects were turned topsy-turvy in the wake of Ms. Parra’s rage.

  Marco felt the gentle stroking of Mei’s hand on his back. “It’s ok. She’s gone. It’s ok,” She said gently.

  “Are you ok, Mei?” Marco’s rocking was slowing. His eyes were still shut but the grimace was gone.

  “My leg hurts. She made my pants dirty. Can you clean my glasses? My shirt is wet.”

  Marco took the paint-smudged glasses and wiped them as best he could on the tail of his shirt. “I hate this place! It’s no good no more.”

  “I know. It sucks,” Mei said, taking her glasses.

  “Mrs. Strout doesn’t like us anymore.”

  “Yes she does,” Mei said sharply.

  “Then where is she? Gone! That’s where!” Marco slowly opened his eyes. “Ms. Parra is mean and hates kids like us. She don’t love everybody like Mrs. Strout used to. Love is good. Ms. Parra doesn’t got love.”

  “Kids! Kids! What has happened?”

  Marco and Mei looked at the door. Mrs. Strout rolled her wheelchair into the room.

  “See. There she is!” Mei squealed with delight.

  “Too late,” Marco said softly.

  The kids in the room rushed to the safety and comfort of their beloved teacher. All except Marco, he stayed back trying to decide what he wanted to do.

  “Maggie, what on earth happened in here?” Mrs. Cline, the Principal, stood at the door taking in the multicolored disaster area.

  “I’m not quite sure. Can you help me get everybody over to the desks that aren’t covered in paint? I’ll try and see if somebody can explain what happened.”

  “Ms. Parra ran into the front office saying something about being attacked,” Mrs. Cline offered. “She’s in the bathroom. She’s pretty upset.”

  Mei stepped closer to Maggie Strout. “She got mad at Adam. She pulled his ear.”

  “Then what happened, sweetheart?” Maggie’s voice was calm and reassuring.

  “He knocked over my paints. It got on her. She got really mad.”

  Marco approached Maggie Strout for the first time. He was angry and his face was red. He took short, rapid breaths through his nose.

  “Marco?” Maggie said, trying to size up the situation.

  “She pushed Mei down. She called me a freak. I hate her.”

  “Marco, we don’t hate, remember?” Maggie replied.

  “You don’t. I do. She’s bad.”

  “Mrs. Cline. I think we need a change of scenery. Can we all go to the music room? We could have “Listening Time”.

  “Great idea,” The Principal answered.

  “Marco, how ‘bout you and I walk together?”

  “You talk nice. She’s not nice.”

  “Mei, you can go with Mrs. Cline, OK? She’ll help you get cleaned up.”

  Mei looked at Marco. He smiled but she knew he didn’t mean it.

  Maggie moved slowly down the hall with Marco at her side. She spoke but he wasn’t listening. Marco decided what he must do. He’ll tell Mei to meet him at 415 McClarren, and she will like his plan.

  FIVE

  Cole returned to his office from an editorial meeting around 4:50. Virgie, the secretary from the sub-pool, was packing up for the day and barely acknowledged his return. A small stack of pink message slips was in the middle of his desk. None from Anthony.

  “Has Anthony, the new intern called in?” Cole asked through the open door.

  “Who?” Virgie demanded.

  Cole moved to the doorway, “Anthony Perez, the young man who was in this morning, the new intern, I went to lunch with. Five ten,160 pounds, dark hair, Hispanic, blue oxford cloth button down shirt, jeans, camel color blazer? Ring any bells?” Cole could hardly contain is disgust at this do-nothing inhabiting the secretary desk.

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “Hasn’t called?”

  “Your messages are on your desk,” The secretary said, without even looking in his general direction.

  Cole watched as she opened the deep side drawer of her desk, took out her purse, picked up a People Magazine and an I Love Kitties coffee cup, and moved around the desk without closing the drawer, and started for the elevator.

  “I won’t be back.”

  “There is a God!” Cole said brightly.

  “Asshole!” Virgie said, still walking.

  “Charmer!” Cole said loudly at her back.

  There was no response. Cole chuckled. He stood in front of his desk and he bent to see the numbers as he punched in Anthony’s cell phone number. Five rings, then voicemail.

  Cole reviewed his notes of the Chinatown shootings. He brought up the file with a rough outline and added a few thoughts. For a few minutes he worked on the introduction to what he hoped would be a piece to both honor those killed and injured, as well as cast a strong light on the menace of street gangs and the inroads they are making into the very fiber of the city. He made a good start, and after a bit of editing and review, he glanced at this watch. 5:30.

  He hit the redial and speaker almost at the same moment and waited for Anthony to pick up. Five rings, then voicemail a second time. Anthony was one of the new generation of “connected” twenty-somethings that lived by, through, and for their phones. Cole was becoming concerned. He checked his cell. Plenty of battery and it was turned on. After a couple of attempts, he changed the ring volume to ‘loud’.

  Unable to fully focus, Cole continued to write. Glancing at his watch almost in rhythm with hitting the space bar and enter key. At 6:00 Cole hit redial again. Five rings then voicemail. He decided to go home.

  Maybe Anthony lost his phone, the battery was dead, lost his number, fell off a Cable Car. For heaven’s sake, Cole thought, he’s not a baby. He didn’t know where Cole lived, though. His bag was still at the office. Something just wasn’t right.

  Across town, Marcos and Mei each returned home. Neither told their parents of the day’s events. Planted firmly in their minds were the seeds of what they must do before morning.

  Mei emptied her backpack and hid the contents far under her bed. In its place she rolled and placed six pair of clean panties and a black bra. She carefully rolled and placed six clean t-shirts on the next row. A pair of jeans and a pair of black leggings went next. When she was sure her parents were asleep, she quietly went to the kitchen and got all the juice boxes and granola bars from the cupboard.

  The backpack zipper was hard to close. But with patience and determination, Mei was able to get it closed. She patted the side of the Bratz backpack and, in the silence of her room, said, “I’m a grown-up now”.

  North of Market street, Marco cleared tables, served water, gave menus to the regulars, and played favorites on the jukebox. It was business as usual at the Tamale Parlor.

  Had anyone been listening, they would have heard Marco repeating almost like a chant, “415 McClarren, backdoor, electric box”.

  The dishwashers seldom paid any attention to Marco. Truth be told, they were a bit unnerved by the boy with the strange eyes and thick tongue. So, when Marco entered the kitchen after the restaurant closed, they mostly kept their backs to him. His parents were in the tiny office in the hallway off the dining room counting the day’s receipts.

  Marco stashed the contents of his backpack under the seat of booth nine. He quietly made his way; backpack in hand, into the walk-in cooler in the kitchen. He took two plastic bags of freshly steamed tamales, a large bundle of grapes, a plastic container of salsa, and a plastic bag of tortilla chips and carefully arranged them in his backpack.

  As he
gently rocked back and forth at the end of the front booth, Marco sang a familiar tune with new lyrics,

  Gonna live forever at 415 McClarren,

  Nobody be starin’ at 415 McClarren,

  Me and Mei not carin’ at 415 McClarren,

  Gonna live forever at 415 McClarren.

  * * *

  Cole greeted the morning with an anxious stomach full of butterflies. He shaved, showered, and checked his cell phone three times for missed calls. A call to The Chronicle found no one picking up the phone in his office. Just as well, he thought.

  The cross-town traffic was lighter than usual and he made the trip to Grant Street in record time. Merchants in Chinatown were busy setting up, sweeping, and hosing down the sidewalks. Cole approached a series of merchants with a big smile and asked if any were interviewed by a young man from the Chronicle. When he did get any kind of reply, it was curt, and made it quite clear they were not interested in talking to anybody not interested in buying.

  On his way back up the street toward his car, he stopped at a fruit stand half-way up the block. A girl in her late teens was carefully arranging fruit and placing price cards.

  “Good morning!” Cole said brightly.

  “Good morning,” the girl said softly.

  “Beautiful produce.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What’s good?” Cole said picking up an odd shaped orange.

  “Everything,” The girl replied with a coy smile.

  “You’re a lot of help,” Cole returned her smile. “I think I’ll try some of these.”

  Cole handed the girl three of the odd shaped oranges.

  “These are good. Kind of sour, but in a good way.”

  An old man with a badly bent back came around the far side of the shop and stood studying the girl.

  “I think we’re being watched,” Cole said in a mock whisper.

  “Always,” The girl giggled. “My grandfather thinks everyone is out to either steal from him or send him to China.”

  “How long has he been here?” Cole asked, as they made their way to the register.

  “He was born here!” Her giggle showed the girl loved her answer. “That will be a dollar.”

  “Here you go,” Cole said handing her four quarters.

  “Thank you.”

  “Say, did you happen to see a young man from The Chronicle around here yesterday?”

  “Hispanic? Kind of cute? Kind of a hoarse voice?”

  “That’s the one.” Cole smiled at the ray of hope.

  “Grandfather chased him off with his broom. He was asking about the parade.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About three, I guess. Seemed nice.”

  “Very. Funny thing is we haven’t heard from him. He’s new in town and I’m trying to figure out where he went.”

  “Sorry...”

  “Fruit not stock itself!” The old man called from behind the girl.

  “She’s a wonderful clerk!” Cole said loudly to the old man.

  “Thank you,” the girl mouthed handing him his small bag of fruit.

  Cole winked and took his oranges and left the shop. Back on the sidewalk Cole wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Three o’clock was only a couple hours after they finished lunch.

  The street was starting to fill with tourists. A couple more merchants with the same, closed mouthed response to Cole’s smile and questions had him ready to call it quits. Two obvious gangbangers had been eyeing Cole from across the street since he bought the oranges. After a fourth rejection to his questions, Cole turned to face the pair in the white tees and FCBZ caps.

  They just stood, arms crossed and staring back at him.

  Cole darted between a cab and a minivan, and stepped up on the sidewalk next to the young men.

  “Fire Cracker Boyz, huh?” Cole offered.

  The pair just stood trying to look tough. Which, Cole thought, is pretty hard to do when you’re five eight and a hundred and twenty pounds.

  “So, are you going to tell me what I’m doing that you find so interesting?”

  “You need to leave our neighborhood.”

  Cole looked unblinking into the eyes of the badly pocked face of the one who spoke.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Trick says so.”

  “That him?” Cole indicated the non-talker.

  “Trick gives the orders in Chinatown. He says you need to go.”

  “And if I don’t want to?” Cole said looking at one and then the other.

  “Pain,” The non-talker finally spoke as he lifted the front of his t-shirt exposing the handle and trigger of a pistol.

  “Even you guys aren’t dumb enough to shoot a newspaper man on the streets of Chinatown. I’m bettin’ Trick wouldn’t like it. So how about you cut the tough guy crap and you tell me what I came here to find out?”

  “What would that be?”

  “Where’s Anthony Perez, The intern who I sent down here to get information about the Parade shootings?”

  For the first time the pair looked at each other. Pockmarks took a couple of steps away and raised his cell phone to his ear. He said several short bursts of Chinese into the phone.

  “You come with us,” He said spinning around.

  “You got a name?” Cole asked.

  “Not for you.”

  “Want an orange?”

  The pair turned and walked up the street. They never looked back. They knew that Cole wouldn’t be far behind, and he wasn’t.

  The Kowloon Dim Sum Restaurant was down a side street off Grant. The day was beginning to warm up, but the windows were completely steamed up. The inside of the Kowloon was like a sauna. Steaming pots in the kitchen filled the tiny space with the smell of steamed buns and dumplings. The air was thick, moist, and unpleasant.

  Pockmarks turned the large metal lock behind him as he closed the door. A group of six white t-shirted young Chinese men were sitting, eating at a table against the wall. The steam in the room seemed to have taken a bit of the starch out of their crisp white t-shirts.

  “Sit!” the young man at the end of the table said.

  “Trick?” Cole inquired.

  “Mr. Zhuó,” He said, not looking up. “Trick is for my friends.”

  Cole set his bag of oranges down on the table and took a seat on one of the chrome and plastic chairs. “Why don’t you open the door? It’s like a sauna in here.”

  “She won’t let us,” Zhuó said, taking a bite of the snow white bun. “Says steam is good for your skin.”

  A flat faced woman in a stained apron came from the kitchen with a platter of sesame seed covered balls. The young men in the room didn’t wait for the platter to even hit the table before they snatched and grabbed the balls from the plate. Like little kids at a birthday party, the group of street hardened thugs displayed what was their chronological age. They were all in fact, still teenagers.

  “They like dessert.”

  “So do I.” Cole reached for one of the last three sesame balls from the platter, “It means the meals over and we can talk.”

  “You need to learn to relax. Confucius says,”

  “Really? Confucius? You are going to give me a Confucius quote?” Cole laughed. “This is like an old Charlie Chan movie. Look, the tough guy posturing is fine. I get it. You’re tough. Your boys are tough. You have Anthony. I want him back. What do you want?” Cole pushed the plates out of his way, set the uneaten ball down, leaned forward, and glared eye to eye with Zhuó.

  “Omar Haro,” Zhuó said, as he stacked two plates atop the other.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A beaner.”

  “And?”

  “He shot my cousin at the parade thing.”

  “And you think you’re going to trade Anthony for that guy? You didn’t think this one out very well. What? You think the police are just going to let you trade Anthony for a Norteño and all is forgotten?” Cole was getting a much better idea of who he was dealing with. W
ith all the gangster movie civility Zhuó tried to portray, he was a just another street punk. And not a very smart one at that.

  “You work for the newspaper right? You know people? Then make the deal. One more dead Mexican is nothing to me. My cousin will be dead for a long time. I can’t change that. But your boy, I can make him dead too. That I can do. So, you do what you need to, to make a trade happen.”

  “If I go to the police with this, they’ll arrest the whole lot of you. You have no chance of this working.” Cole tried to hide is amazement at the stupidity of the conversation.

  “Then we kill your Beaner schoolboy. He will be shark shit before the sun goes down. There are lots of sharks just beyond the Golden Gate, did you know that?” Zhuó’s eyes were cold and without fear. “Habeas Corpus. No body, no crime. Isn’t that the law?”

  Cole just sighed deeply, not about to get into a jailhouse law argument. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “How long does it take someone to starve to death?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cole lied.

  “I’m sure as hell not wasting food on a guy who’s gonna be dead. So I tell you what. You have two days.”

  “I’m not sure...”

  “Then I hope the sharks like Mexican food!” Zhuó interrupted. The room burst into laughter. Zhuó just smiled. “Good-bye, mister?”

  “Sage,” Cole said as he heard the metallic clank of the door unlocking behind him.

  Zhuó reached for another dumpling but his eyes never rose above the bamboo basket. The other three at the table stood as a signal for Cole to leave. The shortest one took an orange from Cole’s bag, then handed it to him.

  Outside Cole took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. The breeze up the narrow street felt good on his moist skin. He dropped the bag between his feet and interlaced his hands behind his head. Cole took another deep breath and looked up at the sky. He knew what must be done. The question was, could he do it?

  * * *

  Marco and Mei didn’t catch the bus. It wasn’t unusual. The bus driver just rolled past their stops. The plan was to meet at 415 McClarren. Mei was waiting when Marco arrived. He had gotten confused and hopped the wrong Muni Bus.